How to create a photo with a pure black background

I recently posted an image on Flickr with an all black background. One of the first comments (by basswulf) asked if I shot the image with a black background or if I did it in post processing. It was actually some of both; most of it was handled in camera with a black background supplemented by a minor bit of touch up after the fact. I thought I'd share here how I typically do this type of shot.

My buddy, super photographer and all around great guy, Rich Legg, wrote an article about creating a photo with a pure white background. My technique is similar but slightly different because I use Paint Shop Pro instead of Photoshop and I'm doing a black background instead of a white one.

I start by shooting against a black background. In this case, the background simply consists of a black piece of fabric suspended by the overhead floor joists in my unfinished basement. I try to put a bit of space between my lights and the background to eliminate light spill onto the fabric. I also try to orient the lights so they are not pointing at the background. Doing this helps give a nice even black background and minimizes the amount of touch up work required.

Here's the starting image exposed at f/14 with a 1/160th shutter speed and ISO 100. Without flashes, this exposure setting would cause the entire image to be almost completely black, even with the overhead lights on. Exposing this way helps produce a black background and lessens post processing work. As can be seen, the background is very close to black. In spite of all this, if you look closely, you can see a bit of detail on the right side. This is where the fabric ended and some of the items in storage in my basement can be faintly seen. A combination of ambient, a little spill from the strobes and being stopped down caused them to start fairly dark but visible.

Absolute black, in RBG color space, is when all three color components are zero. Zooming in close to the face on the left side, we can see the background has values close to black but not entirely black. In fact, it's a very, very, very dark gray.

Looking at a zoomed in portion of dark detail on the hand, we can see the green and blue components are very similar to the black, but the red is a bit higher. This means its similar to the background but has some additional information providing subtle details for the eye.

Since the goal is to get the background black, I want to adjust the image so the background's three components are all zero while maintaining the relative value of red component in the hand. The best tool I've found for this is the Histogram Adjustment. This tool allows a number of adjustments, but for the purposes of this image, we just want to adjust the lower bound. By sliding the black pointer on the left side up from 0 to about 10, we cut off all the very small variations on the black side of the image without significantly changing the lighter portions.

Now, when we look at the background, we can see it's gone to pure black.

But we still have some red component in the details, so we haven't completely lost them.

I didn't post an overall image at this point, but the faint portions of unwanted background detail on the right side of the image are greatly reduced. In fact, I couldn't see them at all. But when I ran the color picker over that area of the image, I did see RBG values other than 0, 0, 0, so I knew there was still some more work to be done.

A cool trick is to change the image into a negative. By doing this, the mostly invisible details in the black background suddenly show up as tints when the background is made white. The blue/gray details clearly visible here on the right were nearly impossible to see in the positive version.

As can be seen in this close up, the previously all black section is now pure white.

The next step is to select the paintbrush and set its color to pure white. Now I just paint out the details I don't want on the right side.

Once all the background that I want to finish as pure black is painted a pure white, I again select the negative image adjustment and everything changes back to the proper colors. At this point the background is pure black and the image is ready for any further processing I may want to do to it.

Note: Click on any image to see a larger size.

How to duplicate the Orton Effect in Paint.Net

I've noticed some buzz on the blogs and photography web sites I visit about the Orton Effect and how to do it in Photoshop. I had close-ups of a couple flowers I wanted to do some special post-processing on and thought this might be an interesting thing to attempt in Paint.Net.

Basically, the idea is to add some blur to the image to give it a soft, dreamy look. The original technique used two over-exposed transparencies sandwiched together. In the digital realm, this is duplicated by layering blurred copies with the original image.

This tutorial is a recipe for what I did. These steps are not original to me; they're simply an adaptation for Paint.Net of what I found on other sites. [1]

Original:


After this tutorial:


To start, right click the image below and select 'Save image as...'. Select somewhere on your computer and save it. Then start Paint.Net and open the file you just saved.




Ok, here we go...

1. Change the name of the layer to make it clear which layer is which. Do this by clicking on the Layer properties button and typing in a new name; something like 'Sharp'.





2. Now duplicate this layer.



3. With the duplicated layer highlighted, click on properties and change the Blending mode to Screen. This has the effect of lightening the image. In the original Orton technique, the sharp image was over exposed one stop. This simulates that effect.



4. Next, with the duplicated layer still highlighted, click the Merge layer down button on the Layers window. This creates a single new layer.



5. Using first step 2 and then step 1, duplicate this layer and name the new layer something like 'Out of focus'. You should now have two layers.



6. Make sure the 'Out of focus' layer is highlighted and on the menu select Effects | Blurs | Unfocus. Up to this point things have been fairly mechanical. Now some subjectivity comes into play. The value to enter here is to a large degree personal preference and specific for a given image's subject and resolution. The idea is to blur out the sharp lines and details but leave the general shape. In general, the higher the resolution of the image, the more unfocusing is needed. For this image, I used a value of 100.



7. Now comes the interesting part. Click on the Out of focus layer's properties and set the Blending mode to Multiply. This blends the two images such that the overall exposure is made similar to the original, brings back the detail but leaves some nice soft edges.



We've now arrived at the final result of applying this method.


(Click image to see a larger size.)

If you're pleased with the result, you can merge the two layers and save your image. If you want more or less blurring, you can go back to step 6 in the history and change the Radius on the Unfocus dialog to something else. Alternatively, you can decrease the Opacity in the properties dialog on step 7. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you have something you like.

In addition to the radius, you can experiment with various other adjustments and effects on the two layers. Things to try could be adjusting brightness and contrast, playing with the levels in different color bands and so forth. Remember you can do different things in each layer prior to merging for a wide variety of changes to the original image.

As example, this image is the final one above with additional tweaking of the brightness and contrast on the Out of focus layer and some levels adjustments on the Sharp layer.


(Click image to see a larger size.)



[1] Here are some other, non-Paint.Net references regarding this effect:
http://www.pcin.net/update/index.php/2006/11/01/the-orton-effect-digital-photography-tip-of-the-week
http://macroartinnature.wordpress.com/2006/04/12/using-the-orton-method-for-artistic-blending
http://tutiki.nikoncafe.com/w/index.php/The_Orton_Technique

Someone posted a comment on one of these sites suggesting Paint.Net's Glow effect was equivalent. I'm not sure I agree. It does have some similarities, but in my admittedly limited experimentation, it doesn't give as much control over the final result. For comparison, here's the above original with the Glow effect added.


(Click image to see a larger size.)

How to use the Clone Stamp tool between layers in Paint.Net

This tutorial shows how to use the clone stamp tool in Paint.net to copy portions of one layer to another.

It shows how to change these:




Into this:


To prepare, save the files used in this tutorial by right clicking on these links and selecting 'Save link as':

• Hear See Speak 1
  
• Hear See Speak 2
  
• Hear See Speak 3

Now let's just go through things step-by-step.

1. Open 'Hear See Speak 1.jpg'

2. Select Layers | Import from file...


3. And open 'Hear See Speak 2.jpg'. This creates a new layer and puts this image on it.

4. Do another layer import on file 'Hear See Speak 3.jpg'. We now have three layers, each with a different image on it.

5. On the Layers window, uncheck the check box on 'Hear See Speak 2'.


6. Make sure the 'Hear See Speak 3.jpg' layer is selected.


7. On the Tools window, click Rectangle select.


8. Select the portion of the image on the right to copy. I used the rectangle selection tool for ease, but you can use any of the selection tools. Depending on the image, you may want to use a selection tool which gives a closer crop on the source. This step is not mandatory but I recommend it. If you don't do this, you may accidentally clone over part of the destination layer which you don't want to change and have to undo and start cloning over. [1]


9. Next click the Stamp tool.


10. Then Ctrl-click on a section to copy.


11. Set the Brush width to 100.


12. Clear the check box for 'Hear See Speak 3'. You should now see the background with a selection rectangle on the right with a round stamp tool indicator.


13. Align the cursor's brush indicator directly on top of the stamp tool's indicator.


14. Click and drag the cursor. You'll see the image from the other layer get copied to the background. Slowly outline the image on the background layer...


15. ...and then fill in the middle by simply dragging the cursor.


16. Repeat for the 'Hear See Speak 2' layer:

• Click the check box for 'Hear See Speak 2' and then click on the layer to highlight it.
  
• On the Tools window, click Rectangle select.
  
• Select the portion of the image in the middle to copy.
  
• Next click the Stamp tool.
  
• Then Ctrl-click on a section to copy.
  
• Clear the check box for 'Hear See Speak 2'. You should now see the background with a selection rectangle in the middle with a round stamp tool indicator.
  
• Align the cursor's brush indicator directly on top of the stamp tool's indicator.
  
• Click and drag the cursor to copy the second layer.

17. Layers 2 and 3 can now be deleted.


18. Done


Hints:

• Put selection rectangles on straight lines in the image to help hide the transition.
  
• Don't forget to copy shadows and reflections.
  
• Use a tripod.


• Use Manual exposure and focusing so there's no change in exposure from one image to the next.

[1] Thanks to davidtayhs and jcav5 on the Paint.Net forum for comments helping to clarify this point.